


here we stand, worlds apart

by Kanoodle



Series: our separate ways [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-05 01:30:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12784002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanoodle/pseuds/Kanoodle
Summary: “I’m not surprised to see you’re unfamiliar,” Gamora says archly – a tone she might not have attempted even an hour ago, but the relative quiet, the strange intimacy of the moment, makes her a little daring. She crosses her arms, tilting her head slightly as she tries to catch his gaze. “As I recall from our first conversation, you’re a little too insistent in letting your blade do the talking.”AKA, the role swap AU that literally no one asked for or wanted, but here it is anyway.





	here we stand, worlds apart

**Author's Note:**

> giant thanks to @poprocks, who came up with the idea for Gamora's backstory!

She finds him humming on the balcony.

It surprises her, considering what she has seen him do, what she knows he is capable of, thanks to a few secondhand summaries from Rocket. An assassin, adopted by a megalomaniac, raised to be a weapon incarnate. A fearsome warrior and war criminal, who has killed and killed and _killed_ without a thought. 

But here he is. Peter Jason Quill, known occasionally as the Star-Lord, which sounds ridiculously overwrought to Gamora, for an assassin to have a code name. The deadliest man in the galaxy – _singing._ And it’s _odd_ , seeing the way he sharpens his blade in time with whatever song he’s humming, murmuring words like he’s singing it some sort of lullaby. The melody is soft, pleasant, and his voice is warm. Oddly gentle, in a way she did not think him capable.

It’s bizarre.

... and strangely endearing.

He tenses suddenly, back ramrod straight, the whetstone stilling against that (already dangerously sharp) blade. The Godslayer, Rocket had called it, when he was feeling particularly generous with sharing information back on her M-ship. Gamora freezes in the doorway, every bit as alert as Quill is. Slowly, the tension ebbs away, and he cuts her a sharp glance over his shoulder, daring her to comment.

Wisely, Gamora keeps her thoughts to herself and takes a slow step out onto the balcony.

“The price of fuel on this station is ridiculous,” she tells him, forcing a lightness into her tone as she stands beside him at the railing. The metal is warm beneath her hands, buzzing slightly with the bass of the music back in the club. “This deal of yours may hardly be worth the cost. I’ll be lucky if I manage to break even.”

He doesn’t laugh, but he _does_ let out a soft huff. Gamora decides it’s close enough.

She glances over to him, examining his face by the dim light, by the shower of sparks that fall from above them, seemingly at random. (And that seemed reckless, given the volatile materials these miners work with; surely someone should repair the damaged wires?) Fine, silver lines dig into his skin, etching into his brow, curling around the outside corners of his eyes, running over the bridge of his nose. They look painful, they look _deep_ , but he doesn’t seem bothered by them.

Gamora almost finds them pretty.

“My connection is making us wait,” Quill says, and the swipe of his whetstone along the blade is almost vicious.

“A negotiation tactic,” she replies easily, and the corner of her mouth quirks upward as she turns to face him, leaning a hip against the railing. “A power play. A means to exert control.”

A tactic with which Gamora was all too familiar. Her life with the Ravagers is hardly perfect, but she learned well how to cut a deal. Aleta Ogord made certain every member of her faction knew how to get their deserved payment, by any means necessary.

(Gamora just hopes she doesn’t have to pull her blaster on Quill’s mysterious contact. She doubts it would go over well with him.)

“I’m not surprised to see you’re unfamiliar,” Gamora says archly – a tone she might not have attempted even an hour ago, but the relative quiet, the strange intimacy of the moment, makes her a little daring. She crosses her arms, tilting her head slightly as she tries to catch his gaze. “As I recall from our first conversation, you’re a little too insistent in letting your blade do the talking.”

Quill actually _smiles_ at her, proving that he does, in fact, have a sense of humor.

“I wasn’t exactly raised in the fine art of diplomacy.” That smile continues to curl his lips, even as he returns his attention to sharpening his sword. It suits him, she thinks, that smile. She wonders if she might be able to coax a few more out of him before they part ways.

“Thanos wouldn’t bother much with compromise, would he?”

Gamora realizes that was a mistake, because the smile on Quill’s lips falls away in an instant.

“No,” he says coldly. Another vicious swipe of the stone against blade. “He wouldn’t.”

They fall silent for a while, the murmur of the club at their backs, the rasp of the whetstone running along the edge of Quill’s sword, filtering between them. Gamora presses her lips into a thin line, exhaling slowly through her nose. This was hardly the impression she wanted to leave on Quill – which was saying a great deal, considering their first meeting had been the two of them grappling for the Orb currently sitting heavily in her pack.

Quill surprises her again, breaking the quiet with a soft sigh. He sets aside the whetstone, leaving his sword to lie on the flat surface of the top rail.

“Thanos destroyed my planet,” he says, low and dark, green eyes fixed on some distant point. “His forces murdered my family. Wiped out life on Earth. He took everything from me. Tortured me. Turned me into a weapon.”

Gamora glances down in time to see his hand clench into a shaking fist atop the railing, knuckles blanching with the effort.

“I only found out later that he was searching for artifacts, like the one in your pack.” Quill nods to the satchel resting against her hip, and she straightens a little, frowning at him. He glances at her, and he briefly shuts his eyes, letting out another breath.

“He never found them,” Quills says. He seems to mean it as a reassurance, but knowing Thanos would destroy a planet for _nothing_ is terrifying. “I don’t even know why he wants them. For all I know, they could just be baubles. Pretty trinkets. But the relics were hidden from him, slipped out from right under his nose, and he’s been searching for them ever since. 

“And then he caught the scent of another relic, and when I found out that he meant to help Ronan destroy another world, I couldn’t— I couldn’t just...”

He falters, and it’s the most vulnerable Gamora has ever seen him – and that’s including those terrifying moments in the Kyln, when Quill was laid out on the deck with Drax kneeling on his chest, both hands wrapped around Quill’s throat. Gamora frowns at him, sympathetic, and her fingers itch to touch him, to press a hand against his shoulder to comfort him.

He comes out of his dark mood quickly enough, though, and he looks at her again.

“You’re Zehoberei,” he says. His head tilts a little, almost curious. He continues on carefully, “Thanos destroyed your homeworld, too.”

She hears the question he doesn’t voice: _Are you the last of your kind?_

Gamora nods slowly. “I was young. A child. He... killed my parents in front of me, and I... ran.”

The memory twists her stomach. The shame and guilt of it, leaving her family to die in agony. She feels a distinctive prickle in her eyes, and she swallows it down as best as she can, ducking her head.

She catches his gaze again, once she feels composed, and she shrugs lightly. “There was a Ravager scouting ship in the area. They took pity on me, scooped me up and took me away. I’ve been working with the Ravagers ever since.”

Quill’s eyes are piercing when he studies her, and she can practically see the way gears turn in his head as he reevaluates her. He had called her an “honorless thief” on the Kyln, refusing to even _look_ at her as they were marched to decontamination. Now, she can tell his opinion is shifting.

It’s almost flattering.

(Even if she thinks his faith may be misplaced.)

When he reaches for the whetstone again, Gamora leans closer, trying to pull his attention back to her.

She says, “You were humming earlier,” and she smiles at the way he flinches back, at the way his expression freezes, as if she caught him tucking stolen goods into his pockets. “What was it?”

He stares back at her, equal parts mortified and defiant. Even in the dim light, Gamora can see the way color rises to the surface beneath those silver scars. She breathes out a laugh and surrenders to her temptation, resting a hand against his arm. He goes rigid again, but when Gamora stills, when she makes no further move, he slowly relaxes.

“It was pretty,” she tells him, and while the flush stays on his face, more of the tension freezing his form falls away. She repeats, “What was it?”

For a few seconds, he stays quiet, gaze skittering off to the colorful gases and dust surrounding Knowhere. He says reluctantly, slowly, “It was a song from Earth. I don’t remember all of it. Hell, I barely remember half of it, but I... try to remember as much as I can, considering...”

He trails off with a slight lift of his shoulder. _Considering the destruction of his people,_ he means, and Gamora nods.

“It was pretty,” she says again, and this time, instead of looking embarrassed, he casts her a small, grateful smile. Gamora leans in closer, giving his arm a light squeeze, and though he doesn’t move away, he stares at her with undisguised wariness. “Can I hear it?”

She watches as he grapples with the idea, sees the way the line of his jaw tenses, the way the hinge of it tics. At length, he seems to set aside his suspicion, and he gives a tight, self-conscious nod. Gamora grins at him, hopping up to sit on the railing, looping a foot around a baluster to help keep her balance. Quill looks at her with exasperation and casts the long, _long_ fall a pointed look. She merely flashes him a blithe smile.

Quill sighs, and she wonders if it’s her imagination that makes it sound almost fond.

Slowly, softly, he starts to hum again, his eyes cast downward. The melody _is_ pleasant, Gamora is gratified to find. He struggles with the lyrics, she can tell, murmuring his way through a few lines, humming his way through others, and she reads the frustration on his face for it.

(They’d both lost so much to Thanos, she realizes. Homes. Families. Their entire cultures. What would have happened if Thanos had taken her, the same way he had taken Quill?

She can only hope she would have survived.)

It’s peculiar, the strange tug she feels in her chest. The way she finds herself leaning in closer as Quill continues with the song, the way something pulls at her, as she stares at his lips as he hums.

He slowly grows more confident as he continues, his embarrassment bleeding away. He lifts his head as he sings, “ _But then I fooled around and fell in love—_ ”

And Gamora can’t help the way she slowly moves toward him—

(And she wonders if she’s imagining it _again_ as he moves to close the space, too—)

They both jerk away from one another when a thunderous _crash_ resounds behind them, and Quill looks every bit as startled as she feels. They both turn toward the cacophony of a second crash, followed by a chorus of raised voices – shouts of encouragement and outrage.

And a singular, “I am _Groot!_ ”

Gamora watches a blur of grey and brown collide into a table, toppling to the floor. She groans, “Oh, no,” as Quill sheathes his sword.

(Is it her imagination a third time, she wonders, that he almost looks disappointed?)

They exchange glances, and she lets Quill lead the charge as they hurry inside.


End file.
